Monday, February 15, 2010

So I've finally finished my exam. My interview is Monday, and hopefully after that I'll be an "actual" Masters student (finally).

Anyway, I've been meaning to contact you about your translation project. I noticed you suggested translating Chichi to ran (『乳と卵』, Breasts and Eggs) for Chin Music Press. I'm actually currently working on a translation of that novel, so if they are interested, I'd appreciate being put in contact with them.

Also, I saw the Neojaponisme review of the novel, and was wondering if they'd be interested in me doing a follow-up. I have some scattered notes I could fix up into an article.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Ever wondered why the Japanese have such a penchant for name-dropping? From Mori Ōgai to Murakami Haruki, Japanese writers love sliding in a famous name or two whenever they get a chance. We Russians are notorious name-droppers, but are still no match for the Japanese!

In fact, I'm currently working on a paper that explores this subject of referentiality in Japanese fiction. Here are some questions I've formulated to guide my discussion:

a) Who and what is being referenced?

b) To what extent do the authors refer to "themselves," their contemporaries, and their immediate surroundings?

c) How does the reference function within its embedded context?

d) How have the methods of referentiality evolved since Meiji, and how does this evolution correspond to geopolitical/historical/cultural shifts?

e) What are the various functions of referentiality (eg, didactic, pedantic, aesthetic, parodic, political...)?

f) What is the relation between reference choices and genre/narrative structure/story/subject?

g) What effect do references have on readers? Are they disguised codes, and if so, what messages do they convey?

h) Why are some stories littered with references, while others aren't?

i) Why do some works refer only to Western sources, while others only to Japan/China?

j) Why do earlier works typically refer to "high" culture, while more recent works refer to popular culture?

k) What does an author's use of references reveal about the ideological underpinnings of a work?

l) How and to what effect do authors use references to manipulate, bend, collapse, or exploit binaries like foreign/native and modern/traditional?

As you pointed out a while back, Earl Miner has argued that pre-Meiji Japanese literature is essentially nonmimetic. “Japanese aesthetic," he writes, "rests not on the imitation of discrete agencies but on relation.” In other words, the literary work is not the simulation of external reality, but is rather a "re-presentation" of literary/historical characters and conventions with which the audience is already familiar.

However, in the early Meiji period reformers like Tsubouchi Shōyō sought to distance themselves from this nonmimetic tradition. For them, Edo-era parodies like Tamenaga Shunsui's Umegoyomi served as models for what one shouldn't do when writing the "new novel." Worthwhile art, they claimed, had to be more life-referential (ie, mimetic, with an emphasis on the private psychological interior of the characters) than art-referential (ie, literary pastiche).

Yet despite Shōyō's call for a new novel of "life" over "art," Meiji writers continued to draw from history and art—only now their referential pool had expanded beyond China and Japan to include the West. Furthermore, unlike Shōyō, who drew a clear line dividing "life" and "art," these writers seemed to regard the two terms less as mutually exclusive binaries than as two modes of a dialectical process in which "art" is both product and producer of "life," and "life" is both product and producer of "art."At any rate, here is the provisional list of references. I plan to expand it in the coming weeks. Additions/suggestions/related reading lists are most welcome. Oh, and I will eventually fill in where it says *All Japanese and Chinese.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Long time reader first time writer. I'm a postgrad student at the University of Sheffield doing an MA in Advanced Japanese. Our next assignment is to do a mini-annotated translation from a 4000-4500字 text. We're free to choose whatever text we like, which ironically has made finding something decent more difficult. So I'm wondering, have you or your readers read any interesting, hard-hitting, even controversial, articles or commentaries lately that focus on social/political issues or current events which would also make a good read in English?

1．高橋源一郎、『ジョン・レノン対火星人』(1985)2．深沢七郎、『楢山節考』(1956) or 『みちのくの人形たち』(1981)3．町田康、『告白』(2005) or 『くっすん大黒』(1996) or 『きれぎれ』(2000)4．石黒達昌、 「最終上映」(1989) or 『平成3年5月2日、後天性免疫不全症候群にて急逝された明寺伸彦博士、並びに……』(1994)5．小野正嗣、 『にぎやかな湾に背負われた船』(2002) or 『森のはずれで』(2006) or 『マイクロバス』(2008)6．黒川創、『もどろき』(2001) or 『かもめの日』(2008)7．井上ひさし、『吉里吉里人』(1981)8．唐十郎、『佐川君からの手紙』(1983)9．田中康夫、『なんとなく、クリスタル』(1981)10.玄月、『おっぱい』(1998)11. 川上未映子、『乳と卵』(2007)12. 古川日出男、『13』(1998) or 『アラビアの夜の種族』(2002) or 『ベルカ、吠えないのか？』(2005) or 『LOVE』(2006)

is a collaborative web journal founded and edited by Beholdmyswarthyface and Sally Suzuki. It focuses primarily—but not solely—on modern Japanese culture, history, and literature. Of miscegenated and common birth, Beholdmyswarthyface grew up in Phoenix, AZ. He holds a Ph.D. from University of Tokyo, and currently teaches literature as tenured lecturer at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies 名古屋外国語大学.